Bloomberg says defense budgets "contain hundreds of billions of dollars for new generations of aircraft carriers and stealth fighters, tanks that even the Army says it doesn't need and combat vehicles too heavy to maneuver in desert sands or cross most bridges in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East."

According to BusinessWeek, redundancy wastes lots of money. "One need only spend 10 minutes walking around the Pentagon or any major military headquarters to see" it.

"Why is sensible military budgeting so difficult? Because lawmakers, including small-government Republicans, protect defense business in their home states with the ferocity of Spartans."

"Even if the Pentagon offered up (sensible) cuts...Congress would almost certainly reject them."

"The senators and representatives don't have the political courage to face voters and tell them that the republic simply does not need the weapon under construction in their hometown."

Trillions of dollars are spent. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta once said DOD "is the only major federal agency that cannot pass an audit today."

Even during October's 16 day shutdown, huge amounts of wasteful spending continued.

Ralph Nader calls now the time to address bloated military spending. Let's "start shutting down the waste and fraud in our military budget," he stresses.

Billions get tossed around mindlessly. Profiteers never had it better. Government watchdogs identify hundreds of billions of potential savings from unneeded weapons, defective ones, no-bid excess, overpayments, and outright fraud.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) conducts research on security, war and peace.

"A world in which sources of insecurity are identified and understood, conflicts are prevented or resolved, and peace is sustained," it says.

Other allocations are for the Energy Department, State Department, Department of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Treasury, NASA, military construction, various categories related to security, and interest attributable to past defense outlays.

Black intelligence, Pentagon and other budgets add many tens of billions more. So do supplemental military allocations. Foreign aid is mostly military related.

The Library of Congress listed the top 10 2012 recipients and amounts as follows: